Another Skyrim patch coming, Bethesda PR tells frustrated player to “calm down”

If you’re one of the millions of players who purchased Skyrim in the past week, upon loading up the game for the first time you probably noticed an update was already available. Now Bethesda has announced that another patch is in the works, though the company has yet to detail exactly what issues it will be addressing.

With a game as ambitious as Skyrim and from a company as notorious for releasing unfinished, buggy games as Bethesda, it would be no surprise if Skyrim keeps up with a steady stream of patches across all three platforms. Given its unprecedented scope and the fact that previous Bethesda titles suffering similar technical issues have gone on to sell remarkably well, the publisher’s bottomline is unlikely to be impacted by the multitude of defects in Skyrim.

More interesting, however, is the way that Pete Hines, Bethesda’s VP of PR and marketing, has taken to Twitter to address frustrated players. “Patches/updates take a little time,” writes Hines. “We can’t turn it around quite that fast. It’s been three days. Calm down. We’re working on it.”

This is in response to a Twitter user named GhostLiz, who was part of a public back-and-forth with Hines. Hines eventually goes on to tell her, “Thank for you for explaining my job to me,” to which she replies, “Someone has to since you’re not doing it. Less suing Notch for a word the dictionary had first, More addressing your customers.”

I’m seriously beginning to wonder if no one explains to PR how Twitter works. Yes, the world can read what you’re saying, so perhaps you should think before firing off some needlessly disparaging remark at the people who buy your games and ultimately pay your checks, especially when “public relations” is in your job title.

As for the incoming update, although Skyrim has a host of issues, some humorous, some not so much, GhostLiz and many others seem to be primarily concerned with the widely-reported slowdown that’s impacting the PlayStation 3 version of the game. VentureBeat reached out to Bethesda for official word on what fixes would be in the next update, and they gave us two links, one to a forum post regarding the previous update, and another regarding a workaround for the texture issue fans have been encountering on the 360. Note that both of these posts are locked to prevent any community members from commenting on them.

If you have any technical issues with the game you’d like to report yourself, you can use the generic Bethesda submission form. Or just tweet Pete Hines.